Like a certain family I know--four bad lungs and one oxygen tank. They chose to ignore a mandatory evacuation order last week--they ran their tank via a generator.

Then there's this lady I know, just had surgery and she had to travel by truck through four states to evacuate. I think her ultrasound to test for a suspected embolism as a result of that ride was postponed due to bad weather.

Maybe you should ask 90,000 people for their stories and reasoning before you pass judgement. Storms, disasters, and people are all very individual John.

I suppose that depends on a lot of things. Are those 90,000 physically handicapped, mentally challenged, seniors or the poor with no means of transportation and no funds for transportation? Have all the hospital, nursing home patients and prisoners been evacuated? Instead of throwing stones, perhaps it might be better just to keep those who can't or won't leave in our thoughts and prayers.

quote:So if all 90,000 drown will that be their stupidityor a failure of the current administration?

That seems a bit black and white to me. Maybe it's not that simple. I think people go into situations like that planning to survive. Part of me understands the need to stay and protect what is valuable to them, whether it be animals, home or possessions; and part of me wonders if adults have the right to keep their children there. Overall, I believe that people make the best decision for themselves with feelings that they can conquer the elements or do the best to survive when the odds might be against them.

I don't believe it makes them stupid - and I don't believe that the government can do any more than provide a means for all to leave. If people choose to stay, unfortunately, it is often at their own risk.

I hope I never have to make the decision, although I did recently on a smaller scale. I chose to stay in my house. Call me an idiot, but I feel very responsible for my animals and if they can't evacuate, it will take a lot for me to leave them behind.

You do have a way of getting us to think. I was not going to respond in the Alley again and look what you made me do. Either I am stupid or the government made me do it (grins).

Once again you leave "the Mark of Huan Yi," a question with a peculiar form. It offers two alternatives, sometimes merely at widely different ends of the same spectrum, sometimes at widely separated ends of slightly different spectra, to increase the terror and confusion when minds struggle to fit together the jig-saw pieces of two different puzzles and attempt to make them yield an answer other than purest dada. Hoo Mama! that's what I say to you. So, Huan Yi, what have you given us here today?

Let's see. A hurricane is coming to hit the the coast of Texas. Yes, I see that; and the government has issued an evacuation order. Yep, I see that as well. And 90, 000 folks have apparently refused the evacuation order so far, OK, I have that. And your question is what? Ok, it's:

"So if all 90,000 drown will that be their stupidityor a failure of the current administration?"

Well, now that is a difficult one, isn't it. First, you're drowning 90,000 people. Why would you want to do that, Huan Yi? You've taken a list of probabilities and chosen the single most unlikely occurrence from the list. Given the length of time a hurricane takes to pass over land and the amount of rain and wind that comes with it, over the period of 2-3 days, I would expect at least one death among 90,000 people without the storm. At least one death would be likely to my thinking. No deaths would be unlikely, even without a storm in a population that size, even if it were of normal folks. In this case, the population will probably be biased toward the more unhealthy, elderly, less mobile and poor. You're assuming the most unlikely scenario, though, that everybody dies.

The choice of that scenario suggests that this is not a serious question. A serious question would look at the likely casualty figures, and plan for perhaps a single or perhaps two standard deviations out from that number. I suspect resources allocation would rise exponentially for results expected beyond that point. And you wouldn't actually get results beyond the two standard deviation level. These are, of course, my assumptions. If you care to dispute them, you might try some research; I'm merely meatballing the figures.

So, the actual figure of 90,000 at this time may be accurate in terms of those who've stayed behind. It may also be grossly inaccurate. Are these figures from FEMA? Who has gathered them? If they are FEMA figures, I'd have to give FEMA a pat on the back for being a bit more on the ball than they were in New Orleans. Before we're even to guess how much responsibility belongs to the feds and the government, we'd have to know what the government's doing and how well it's functioning, Huan Yi, wouldn't we? Are there food supplies and disaster relief supplies ready to move? Have they been pre-positioned? Have the glitches that kept the movement of these supplies from moving after Katrina, such as the denial of the permission of movement by FEMA officers for the movement of army supplies and disaster relief workers been ironed out this time? Have these glitches been settled? Or is it likely that they may be a problem yet again? There are a great many issues like this to be examined before one can actually say what degree of government credit (yes, credit, should things go well) or responsibility should be portioned out.

Your assumption that the government will be blamed for disaster has some basis in reality. It also deserves that responsibility in reality for Katrina in large part. Hopefully it has changed policy in the meantime. I believe government can be an enormous help in situations like this, and would hope that this will prove the case here. Clearly the current administration had not found a way to do this before Katrina; it is philosophically opposed to government doing this job, and it had systematically sought to undermine the government's ability to do it. During Hurricane Andrew, by way of contrast, the government had done a much better though certainly imperfect job, and FEMA apparently shone.

Suggesting that the death of 90,000 would be due "to their own stupidity" or "a failure of the current administration" would be of course an example of a false dichotomy. It is unnecessary simply to offer two choices. One might be reminded that bad weather plays a part in hurricane deaths. One might be reminded that everybody who wants to leave is not able to leave for one reason or another, and those reasons are not always stupid. Many people in Texas, it might be remembered, are survivors of Katrina; they might have reason for being less than trusting of either the federal government or of the governments of the local Texas towns whose welcome of them was in some cases less than totally gracious.

I picked the following up from a Wikipedia discussion of black and white thinking or logical fallacies or some such:

quote:The informal fallacy of false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, or bifurcation) involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are other options. Closely related are failing to consider a range of options and the tendency to think in extremes, called black-and-white thinking. Strictly speaking, the prefix "di" in "dilemma" means "two". When a list of more than two choices are offered, but there are other choices not mentioned, then the fallacy is called the fallacy of false choice.When a person really does have only two choices, as in the classic short story The Lady or the Tiger, then they are often said to be "on the horns of a dilemma".False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice ("If you are not with us, you are against us.") But the fallacy can arise simply by accidental omission—possibly through a form of wishful thinking or ignorance—rather than by deliberate deception.When two alternatives are presented, they are often, though not always, two extreme points on some spectrum of possibilities. This can lend credence to the larger argument by giving the impression that the options are mutually exclusive, even though they need not be. Furthermore, the options are typically presented as being collectively exhaustive, in which case the fallacy can be overcome, or at least weakened, by considering other possibilities, or perhaps by considering a whole spectrum of possibilities, as in fuzzy logic.

The "fuzzy logic" here is not "unclear thinking," but a field of mathematics which allows electronics to be calibrated along a whole range of possibilities instead of only at specified points, so you can set your toaster to brown your toast at the level you want it and not at dark, medium or light exclusively. Just an explanation of something you probably already understood for general clarification in case somebody didn't.

"A mandatory evacuation order “More than a million people evacuated southeast Texas ahead of Ike. But citing faith and fate, tens of thousands more ignored calls to clear out, coastal authorities said. The National Weather Service warned that people in smaller structures in some areas "may face certain death."

The choice to stay — always questionable, sometimes fatal — was an especially curious one to make so close to Galveston, site of a 1900 storm that killed at least 6,000 people, more than any other natural disaster in U.S. history. . .

... but there were no signs anyone was being forcibly removed.

"We're not going to drag them out of there and handcuff them," Davison said. "They've made their decision."”

From what I've read, it seems like rescue operations are going quite well, unlike during Katrina.

Those who chose to stay, well, guess they had that right, but perhaps rescue services also have the right to bill those who chose to stay for the costs involved in rescuing them.

And, in the case of a mandatory evacuation order, maybe fining those who stayed might encourage people to think a little more not only about putting their own lives at risk, but also the lives of those involved in rescue operations.

And those "putting their lives at risk to rescue those who ignored?" What are they citing for their decision to do so? Because we shouldn't forget it is, indeed, their decision to put their lives at risk.

Essentially we have two different groups, both of which have decided that something is worth taking a huge risk. Neither of them was forced to do so by the other. Both chose.

Why is one more stupid than the other? Just because their reasons make more sense to you?

It seems you are challenging me. It seems the challenge is along specific lines. Let me try to lay them out to see if I understand you correctly. There are 90,000 people in Texas and the gulf area according to the government weather service who have decided not to leave the area predicted for the hurricane. These are people you characterize as, to put it kindly, "foolish." Your initial concern in your posting appeared to be that these 90,000 people would not do anything so stupid as to make the present Republican government look foolish before the general election. I am certain that you must have meant something else, but frankly, that is the way it appeared. You appeared to be blaming these 90,000 people for the effect that their deaths would have. Any concern for their actual well-being or for that of their families, their friends or their property went unexpressed in your condemnation of these folks.

I too have seen pictures and heard stories about the disaster in Galveston in 1900. The horror is staggering. Whether it is the greatest natural disaster or the one that caused the most casualties in America up to that point is up to some question. Photographs were not available of the great earthquake in the 1820's or 30's that reversed the flow of the Mississippi and other rivers for a while and altered the topography of the region forever, but the effects were felt from Arkansas and Louisiana, and Missouri, up, I believe through the Ohio Valley and into Minnesota. Nobody will ever be able to guess the number of casualties from that because whole towns were wiped off the map, not to mention native Americans and isolated settlers. Probably, I would suspect, considerably in excess of 6,000 folks though, especially considering deaths afterward from starvation, injury and illness.

If one considers illness as a natural disaster, then the coming of the Spaniards to the New World, and the presence of the other settlers that came with them, took the population of the new world from an estimated 100,000,000 on both continents in 1492 down to about 3,000,000 in less than a hundred years or so. Flu, smallpox and other illnesses, not to mention greed and mismanagement of the whole colonial enterprise by Spain.

"Choose" and "ignored" must be understood in terms of who is doing the deciding, and in terms of what perceived events, with what being the the choices that seem to be apparent to the people doing the deciding. Any particular group of 90,000 people could be stupid or crazy, but for you to make that determination simply on the basis of the information you supply here indicates that you have not considered factors such as isolation (not everybody who might wish to get such information is as plugged into information sources as you believe them to be for reasons of personal choice or poverty or pure chance), experience (not everybody believes that the Weather services offers information as accurate as the information you believe they offer; and, if the information the weather service offers is accurate, these people may believe that the information is biased in one direction or another for other reasons), distrust (they believe the motives for issuing these warnings are not on the up and up), ill health (they are unable to move without taking a larger risk than if they remained in place). It will not take much effort, if you actually think about the matter realistically, to understand that there are many reasons, some of them pretty good, for remaining in place. After the case, of course, it become much simpler, and once can say against cautious reasoning, that they were smart to stay. In fact, most of the time, they be all right. It's simply when the case doesn't work out that way, it really really doesn't work out.

The calls to clear out were made because those in authority had the responsibility to make them. They had the responsibility to organize and implement plans to facilitate these things happening, and to help people who can't do it themselves, should they need or want that help. They have the responsibility to organize relief efforts and not get in the way of other relief efforts. They have the responsibility not to make money off the efforts of others to put together a relief effort and not to siphon money off for themselves or their friends and to do everything in a transparent and aboveboard way, so that it can all be looked at later. They have the responsibility to learn from their mistakes, and to help as many people as they can without being coercive about it.

They have no obligation to be perfect, only to go about things in a way that intends to do no harm.

Perfectly normal human behavior in this case doesn't seem to qualify itself as stupidity. Expecting people to act as though they were sheep and to go along with the decrees of the government in an unquestioning way, that does seem to me to be stretching credibility a bit. I have trouble imagining you of all people, Huan Yi, doing so, being a skeptical sort of guy yourself. You do your own darn thinking and your conclusions are your own, and I do believe you have some justifiable pride in running things that way. I don't think it's always such a stupid thing to do, though the two of us will disagree much of the time which situations are the right ones for the principle to be best applied in.

So far it appears the citizens and the government both are coming through well. Let's hope the trend continues for both.

I hope I've given your concerns a fair response, John. If not, let me know and I'll give it another shot. Best to you,

I saw a guy on CNN who chose to ride out the storm because he wanted to catch the waves the next day. ("Surfers are a breed unto themselves," I thought.)

But I gave this more thought than I probably should have, because I started thinking even more.

"citing Faith"

and I thought of Father Red, an old priest buddy of mine, who refused to leave his church during Katrina. They never did find his body. I tell people that perhaps he ascended. I loved that man dearly, so I am not actually joking much about that ascension bit.

But that led me to think of my deceased father-in-law, who was a captain in the New Orleans Fire Department.

He told me once that the fire department is full of grown men who played with matches as children.

Nod. Our rescue workers are more than likely adrenaline junkies who just found a more socially acceptable outlet for that sort of thing.

We watch and cheer the Olympic athletes, another group of people who like to test themselves. What motivates someone to find their personal best in a manner that sometimes put their lives at risk?

That rocket scientist guy I studied with once was not amused by the new age terminology of negative and positive energy.

He told me that was erroneous, because energy was neither. It either is or it ain't.

Our perceptions are what deem it so.

Just my musings on the aspect of the human condition that makes some strive to surpass conditions not exactly friendly to humans.

If nothing else, the most dangerous time of a hurricane is AFTER it hits: with downed power lines, flooding, flash floods, poisoned water. The problem with the 'left behind' bunch, is that that they are there to get in immediate trouble with the aftermath, while the authorities can safely judge when the rest of the town folks can return. A person could starve or dehydrate simply staying in place until utilities get turned back on.